The business of literary circles in nineteenth-century America

David Dowling explores the economics of professional authorship--the contiguity between business practice and aesthetic principle--in the most significant literary circles of the American nineteenth century. This comprehensive study ranges from Irving's Knickerbockers, Emerson's Transcendentalists, and Garrison's abolitionists to the popular serial fiction writers for Robert Bonner's New York Ledger--to unearth surprising convergences between such seemingly disparate circles.